Here's the thing: Audrey Burke (Halle Berry) has lost her husband, Brian (David Duchovny) to some random violence and her brother, Neal (Omar Benson Miller), is this gigantic, huge, weird-looking fat dude and I'm like, "who the fuck is that guy?" Then it's revealed that he's Audrey's brother and I'm like, "they don't mean biological brother, do they?" Seriously, I think that no matter who you are, you'll sit through the film trying to figure out what combination of Audrey's father and some farm animal made this dude Halle Berry's half brother.

While I was trying to figure out how in the hell this mammoth freak of human genetics is related to Audrey, director Susanne Bier is trying to tell the story of how Audrey and her dead husband's best friend, Jerry (Benicio Del Toro), work together to get past Brian's death. The catch is that Audrey really never liked Jerry because Jerry was the best friend Brian always made time for even though Jerry was a drug addict.

Thankfully, Jerry is a nice drug addict. He just does his heroine and that's that. He doesn't steal money. He doesn't sell your antiques on the black market. He doesn't pimp your children. This explains why Audrey invites him to live in her garage, which is more like a high-priced condo, really. Actually, I think if Audrey's garage had been more like a regular garage, nothing in "Things We Lost in the Fire" would have turned out as well. I mean, imagine that instead of a nice mattress and feather pillow, Jerry was sleeping on an oil slick with a piece of rolled up cardboard for a pillow.

But no, Jerry is all nice and great with the kids and the only place where he makes a mistake is when he tries to kiss Audrey, but Audrey forgives him. Hell, everybody likes Jerry. Brian’s neighbor, Howard Glassman (John Carroll Lynch), even gives Jerry a job without so much as interviewing. He just figures Jerry is a good guy because Brian was such a great judge of character. And this is how this movie goes: everybody Jerry meets likes him and eventually he gets out of his heroine funk. Then there’s Audrey, who helps Jerry get out of his heroine funk and effectively solves her crisis as well.

Aside from the fantasy aspects of the story, it didn’t help that I kept whistling the melody to “We Didn’t Start the Fire”, that awful Billy Joel song, thinking that “Things We Lost in the Fire” actually fit better. Really, it was just a depressing experience all around.